Cowards – Self Titled EP

Cowards hmm… Seems like a fairly in accurate term to represent this bands stance in any form of a quarrel. If there is anything, and I do mean anything at all cowardice, fearful, or weak about this band, it’s members, and what they are trying to represent this EP does not give the slightest clue of it.

These boys hail from a small city no other than Fayetteville Arkansas. They in my opinion, are more than a prime example that sometimes in specific situations, that in an area where there is not even a pulse of a music scene for the type of music this band is interested in leashing forth and hither-ward, that music extremely original and buxom with an energy of it’s own can be produced from/to the environment which it’s creators are surrounded by.

Music composed under such circumstances as I have described in the last paragraph is music that I am highly interested in, in many and in a general sense. These guys have made a fierce sound that is hard for me to begin to describe. Though I cannot truly relate their auditorial uniquity to the sound of another band, I can however list some groups that I would say that I hear influence and similar sounds of. Some of these groups being: Entombed, High On Fire, Mastodon, Pig Destroyer, Eyehategod, Neurosis, Sepultura and the most obvious to me Pantera. Though I named these bands in a feeble attempt to compare the sounds of the previous mentioned groups and Cowards, I feel they are actually much more brutal than those bands (jaw dropper I know) and that I leave it to the listener to draw their own conclusion as to how these guys sound for the simple fact that they have a sound that is truly their own.

When I think of these three tree tracks on this EP, I tend to think of them as introspective protests which pierce to and through the exterior world and it’s aspects that they see unfit . It’s very safe to say that this band writes the kinda songs where it seems as if the music and the lyrics are molded to fit one another, as the combination of such seems to simultaneously intensify the meaning of the lyrics and the feeling of the music.

Okay! The final and third track on this impressive debut that I am urging to discuss, is entitled “Incarcerated”. Excuse my language but for lack of a better word it is – FUCKING INTENSE! This song starts off with a bit of feedback and rips and kicks in a with ultra-fast guitar riff with a skank beat conjoined by blast fills on the drums that just kicks you in the face until soon your choking on your teeth that were knocked down throat by the skull-quake vibrations raping the speakers they bellow from. Soon it kicks in with the grimiest southern fried sludge riff that reminds you these boys are from Arkansas. By the end of the song and it’s lyrical attack, the vocals continuously shout ” I never loved anything as much as I hate you! “. Those are some strong words, that seem to only get stronger each time they are said, it seems as if it’s so intense that each you hear them you relate a new subject to the poetic value of the words, the music increasingly intensifies.

Basically what it boils down to with this album, well I guess it never really boils down… but the point i’m trying to get at is this is some seriously intense, heavy, and very serious no non-sense music. This EP is for your average hipster scene-kid, it’s for those who are truly intellectual and interpersonal about what true metal is today. I can honestly say that the cowards have forged a sound that is quite contemporaneous with so many aspects of what has been happening in the extreme metal underground for the last twenty years. This a very fresh album to say the least, I highly recommend downloading  a copy as I have, especially when you consider the convenience of it being available for download on facebook. I honestly don’t know much else to say, this was a fairly hard review to put in words, however the EP speaks for itself. All I can really say is download it as soon as possible! Heres your link on facebook – Right Here.